The parthenon in athens

Greece Culture

By Sissy Blue
  • Period: 2600 BCE to 1250 BCE

    Minoans Civilization

    Crete
    Wealth, magnificence palaces
    Peaceful
    Invaded & overpowered by the Mycenaeans
  • Period: 2000 BCE to 1100 BCE

    Mycenaeans Civilization

    Borrowed heavily from Minoan culture.
    Traders & warriors
    Internally divided & contentious.
    Discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870s.
  • Period: 1100 BCE to 800 BCE

    Greek "Dark Ages"

    Rise of Hellenic Civilization
    Migrations/ invasions
    -Dorians = Peloponnesus
    -Ionians = Attica, & later Asia Minor
    Eventually trade & urban life revived.
    Writing using borrowed Phoenician alphabet.
  • Period: 624 BCE to 548 BCE

    Thales of Miletus

    Person
    Contemporary of Solon
    Sought to understand the order of nature.
    Believed water was the basis element.
    Omitted the gods from his account of origins of nature.
    Sought natural explanations only.
    First recorded prediction of a solar eclipse.
  • Period: 611 BCE to 547 BCE

    Anaximander

    Person
    Rejected Thales' ideas about centrality of water.
    "Boundless" was the source off all things.
    Explained the creation of the world & all things in it by natural means & without relying on gods or creation myths.
  • Period: 605 BCE to 527 BCE

    Pisistratus

    Person
    Promoted culture & architecture
    considered a tyrant
    (tyrants were often aristocrats, but posed as champion of the poor)
  • 600 BCE

    Sappho

    Sappho
    Person
    Established school on the island of Lesbos.
    Lyric poetry
  • Period: 580 BCE to 507 BCE

    Pythagoras

    Person
    Nature of things is to be found in Mathematical Relationships.
    Musical scale represented in math.
    Religious mystics who believed in transmigration of souls.
    -Therefore refused to eat meat because it contained former human souls.
  • 525 BCE

    Anaximenes

    Anaximenes
    Person
    Primary substance was air.
    -Rarefied air become fire.
    -Condensed air became Clouds & Wind.
    -Further condensation produced Water, Earth, & Stones.
  • Period: 525 BCE to 456 BCE

    Aeschylus

    Person
    Believed in Divine Justice which couldn't be violated with impurity.
    Hubris inevitably leads to punishment.
    Through suffering comes knowledge.
    Believed to have written 70-90 plays, only 7 survived today
  • Period: 518 BCE to 438 BCE

    Pindar

    Person
    Lyric Poetry
    Extolled the pursuit of excellence.
  • Period: 515 BCE to 450 BCE

    Parmenides

    Person
    Founder of formal logic.
    Universe is unchanging, unknowable by the sense, but apprehended by the mind only.
    -Foundation of metaphysics.
    Viewed universe as: One, Transcendent, Permanent, & Perfect.
    -Influential on later Christian views of God.
  • 499 BCE

    Persian War

    Persian War
    Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor rebel against Persians.
    Athhenians (Ionians) sent assistance.
  • Period: 496 BCE to 406 BCE

    Sophocles

    Person
    Dramatic characterization, violent passion & tender emotion.
    Immoderate behavior results in negative consequences.
    Believed to have written about 123 plays, only 7 survive today.
  • Period: 495 BCE to 429 BCE

    Pericles

    Person
    He was a influential Greek statesman, orator, & general of Athens.
  • 490 BCE

    Persian Wars

    Persian Wars
    Darius I invaded Attica.
    Greeks defeat Persians at Marathon.
  • Period: 485 BCE to 406 BCE

    Euripides

    Person
    Critical anaalysis of war, women human suffering, weakness.
    Portrayed inner struggle of souls in torment.
    Portrayed war as cruel & barbaric, not noble & heroic.
    Believed to have written about 90-95 play, 18 survive today.
  • Period: 484 BCE to 424 BCE

    Herodotus: "The Father of History"

    Person
    Present is shaped by the past.
    Persian War
    Contrast of Eastern despotism with Greek freedom.
    Punishment of hubris
    He sought to make history more than mere stories.
  • 480 BCE

    Persian Wars

    Persian Wars
    Xerxes invades with 250,000 men & 500 ships
    Many Greek city-states unite in a rare display of unity & cooperation to oppose the Persian invasion.
    Delian League
  • 479 BCE

    Persian Wars

    Persian Wars
    Battle of Plataea
    Significant land victory for Greeks.
  • Period: 469 BCE to 399 BCE

    Socrates:The Rational Individual

    Person
    He emphasized importance of knowledge of individuals & society-self-knowledge.
    He didn't merely attack old ideas but sought to offer solutions in their place.
    sought the improvement (perfection) of the individual character, the achievement of of moral excellence.
    Subject all human beliefs to reason.
    Remove tradition,authority, myth, superstition.
    Tireless & endless introspection.
    Wrong thinking results in wrongdoing.
    Dialectics
    Condemned to death.
    -Corrupting the youth of Athens.
  • Period: 460 BCE to 400 BCE

    Thucydides

    Person
    Critical analysis applied to political history.
    Strove for factual accuracy.
    Peloponnesian War
    Sought to discover larger principles behind the details of human events.
    Rejected myths & legends.
  • Period: 460 BCE to 370 BCE

    Democritus

    Person
    Empty space.
    Infinite number of atoms.
    Mechanical universe consisting of atoms.
  • Period: 448 BCE to 380 BCE

    Aristophanes

    Person
    Comic plays ridiculed statesmen, intellectuals, government.
    Critical of decay of Athenian morality & traditional values.
    Corruption & waste angered him.
    Wrote 40 plays, 11 survived today.
  • Period: 431 BCE to 404 BCE

    Peloponnesian War

    Delian League (Athens) VS Peloponnesian League (Sparta)
    Peloponnesian League invaded Attica
    -Inflicted damage but not decisively so
    -Plague kills 33% of Athenians, including Pericles
    -Truce in 421 bce
    Athenians attempt to colonize Sicily
  • Period: 429 BCE to 347 BCE

    Plato: The Rational Society

    Person
    Disciple of Socrates.
    Theory of Ideas.
    Theory of Just State.
    The Republic
    Influenced by Peloponnesian War.
    Sought permanent truth & moral certainty.
  • 411 BCE

    Politics

    Politics
    Oligarchs gain control
    -The Four Hundred
    -Restrict citizenship to 4,000 men
    -Challenged & briefly overpowered by forces loyal to the democrats.
  • 404 BCE

    End of Peloponnesian War

    End of Peloponnesian War
    Sparta resumes fight against Athens & defeats the city.
    -Delian League is Dissolved.
    -Athenian walls are reduced.
    -Athenian navy is reduced.
    End of Athenian hegemony.
    Shatters the spirit of Hellenic society.
  • Period: 400 BCE to 301 BCE

    The Fourth Century

    Civilization
    Weakened Athens no longer led the Greeks.
    Spartan hegemony
    -Heavy-handed
    -Culturally sterile
    -Provincial
    Fighting among the city-states & within the city-states (civil wars)
  • 388 BCE

    The Fourth Century

    The Fourth Century
    Civilization
    There were no more independent Greek city-states except for Sparta.
    As the city-states destroyed themselves, Phillip II of Macedonia began to organize his troops.
    Gradual extension of Macedonian power until all were under the rule of Phillip II.
  • Period: 384 BCE to 322 BCE

    Aristotle: A Synthesis of Greek Thought

    Person
    Pupil at Plato's Academy
    Tutor of Alexander the Great
    Founded the Lyceum
    Organized & systematized the thought & work of the Pre-Socratic's, Socrates, & Plato.
    Addressed: Ethics, Physics, Logic, Astronomy, Zoology, Botany, Rhetoric,Poetry, Anatomy, & Metaphysics.
    Ethical Thought & Political Thought